Heavy schoolbags. Why can't the school be more helpful?

[nighbynight]

All 3 of my school age children suffer from backache.
Dd's schoolbag weighs in at 20% of her body weight.

We have been through all the easy reasons -
She only brings the books she needs for homework and tests.
She does not bring extra stuff.
She can't have a spare set of books at home, because she isnt allowed back into her own classroom to leave the books, after she has been at her homework class.
She has an ergonomic schoolbag.
She doesnt want a pull along one because other children will laugh at her.
The school on the one hand, issues leaflets saying in big letters that your child's schoolbag shouldnt be more than 10% of body weight. Simultaneously, they scold children who don't do all the homework, or don't have every book there in the lessons, and they issue homework with more books than 10% of the child's weight.

We live in an age of Kindles, iPads, data sticks, and my childrens quality of life is crap because they are in constant pain. They dont want to do sport, and dont sleep well.
Everything on the internet says sanctimoniously that to solve the problem you must ensure that the school bag is not more than 10% of the childs weight. HOW?

Why cant schools take this problem seriously, and help find a proper solution, instead of just issuing orders that their own practices ensure cant be kept to?

I would love to go for a high tech solution.

The current situation is that I spoke to the head
who said "she must be carrying loads of extra things in her bag" and
"nobody else has complained"

dd says that everyone else moans, but they dont tell the teachers, they just accept it. But I know there is at least one other girl in the class, whose health is very poor, similar to dd, headaches and backache.

I agreed that I would make a list of everything in dd's bag for a week, and what it weighs.

ds took dd's bag by mistake this morning (they are similar), because she had a day off school and he wasnt looking!!
and came back home with huge back ache, even more than usual, saying "how does dd manage that bag?"

I cant do the extra books solution, because dd has a homework class at the school, after which she isnt allowed back in her classroom to drop the books.

Does she have a homework timetable, nbn?

Can you go through her homework planner and get her to tell you what she needs for each subject?

Put those books to one side and see what is leftover that she is carrying needlessly.

I am a Form Tutor to Year 7 and some of them do have very heavy backpacks, but when I go through their planners to see what they need, they are actually carrying far more than that. It is not easy for most kids of that age to be sufficiently organised and I find that they do need help to get into the right routine.

She swears that every book is needed, for homework, test revision, and catching up on missed stuff if she's been off.
But after the holidays, I am going to monitor the bag every day.

I think a lot of pupils do swear that they need everything and it is common for their teachers to disagree!

She probably does need a little help with her organisation at the end of the day. I do this for my pupils, but it is something where a parent can have input.

I do think you should tackle the school homework club so that she can leave completed work in school. It shouldn't be that hard for the school to provide a bookcase or even a crate for the work to go in, as long as she wasn't leaving anything valuable. The other thing they could easily do is to have a copy of the textbooks in the school library. This is something we have in our school library which means pupils who stay for prep don't need to carry their own.